Chapter 7 - The Price of a Mother“Mom!”
Willa’s scream filled the ambulance.
Ruth sat in the passenger seat of Whitfield’s SUV, confused and frightened, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Whitfield held a pistol against her ribs.
The vehicles raced along the lakeshore road.
Everett tried to sit up.
Pain shot through his body.
Willa pushed him back.
“Don’t.”
“He has your mother.”
“I can see that.”
Her voice shook.
The black SUV pulled ahead.
A burner phone on the ambulance floor began ringing.
Willa stared at it.
Marco’s driver must have placed it there.
She answered.
Whitfield’s voice came through.
“Tell your driver to exit at Foster.”
Willa looked through the windshield.
“If you hurt her—”
“You should be more concerned with what happens if you disobey.”
Ruth looked out the SUV window.
For one brief second, her eyes met Willa’s.
Recognition appeared.
Then panic.
“Willa!”
The sound barely carried through the road noise.
Willa’s chest broke open.
“Mom!”
Whitfield forced Ruth back.
Everett reached for the phone.
Willa hesitated.
Then handed it to him.
His voice was still rough.
“Alan.”
Silence.
Whitfield had never heard Everett speak since the coma began.
“Well,” the doctor finally said. “The dead continue to disappoint me.”
Everett’s eyes turned black.
“Release her.”
“You aren’t in a position to give instructions.”
“You know me better.”
“I knew you when you could stand.”
Everett glanced at the road.
Three Kane vehicles followed.
Police sirens sounded somewhere behind them.
Whitfield continued.
“Foster exit. Alone. No Marco.”
Everett looked at Willa.
She shook her head.
“No.”
Whitfield heard.
“If Marco follows, Ruth dies.”
The line disconnected.
Willa grabbed the phone.
“Damn you!”
Everett watched her.
“You’re not going.”
“That’s my mother.”
“He wants you.”
“He wants both of us.”
Everett looked toward the SUV ahead.
“He wants the ledger.”
Willa stared.
“We don’t have it.”
“He thinks you know where it is.”
“I don’t.”
“You heard Harold.”
“That’s not a location.”
Everett closed his eyes briefly.
Then looked at her.
“Maybe it is.”
Willa frowned.
“Blue ledger.”
He spoke slowly.
“My father had a blue room.”
“What?”
“At the old Kane printing house.”
The ambulance took the Foster exit.
Everett continued.
“Private records.”
“You think the ledger is there?”
“If Harold knew…”
His breathing became strained.
Willa checked him.
“Stop talking.”
“No.”
“Everett.”
“Willa.”
Their eyes met.
Neither was accustomed to surrender.
The ambulance stopped beneath an abandoned rail overpass.
Whitfield’s SUV waited fifty yards ahead.
Ruth was pulled out.
She stumbled.
Willa opened the ambulance door.
Everett grabbed her wrist.
His hand was weak.
The command was not.
“No.”
“I have to.”
“He’ll take you.”
“That’s why Marco is going to follow.”
Whitfield’s voice suddenly came through the phone.
“I can see the rear vehicles, Willa.”
She looked back.
Marco’s convoy had stopped out of sight around the bend.
“Get out.”
Willa climbed down.
Cold wind cut through the thin dress she had been wearing since the previous night.
She walked toward her mother.
Whitfield held Ruth by the arm.
“Stop there.”
Willa stopped ten feet away.
“Let her go.”
Whitfield smiled.
“Where is the ledger?”
“I don’t know.”
He pressed the gun against Ruth.
“Wrong answer.”
Ruth looked at Willa.
“Nice nurse.”
Willa’s eyes filled.
“I’m here, Mom.”
Whitfield’s face hardened.
“Where?”
“I said I don’t know!”
A vehicle door opened behind her.
Willa turned.
Everett stood beside the ambulance.
Barely.
One hand gripped the door.
His legs shook.
His face was gray with pain.
But he was standing.
Willa stared.
“You idiot.”
Everett ignored her.
Whitfield’s expression became almost fascinated.
“Remarkable.”
Everett took one step.
Then another.
“Let her go.”
“You should be unconscious.”
“You should be dead.”
Whitfield smiled.
“Your sister told me the same thing.”
Everett stopped.
The air changed.
“What did Caroline tell you?”
Whitfield’s eyes glittered.
“That she knew what her father was doing.”
Everett’s jaw tightened.
Willa looked between them.
“What was he doing?”
Whitfield laughed.
“You really don’t know.”
Everett took another painful step.
“Tell me.”
“Your father wasn’t merely moving freight, Everett.”
No one moved.
“He was moving people.”
Willa felt sick.
“People?”
“Runaways. undocumented workers. girls who couldn’t disappear loudly enough to matter.”
Everett stared at him.
“You’re lying.”
“Caroline found records.”
Whitfield continued.
“She wanted to expose him.”
Everett’s breathing became harder.
“He killed her?”
Whitfield smiled.
“I didn’t say that.”
“Who paid you?”
“Give me the ledger.”
Willa suddenly understood.
“You don’t know where it is either.”
Whitfield looked at her.
“That’s why Harold was alive as long as he was. You were trying to get it from him.”
His face changed.
Willa continued.
“And when he wouldn’t tell you, you killed him.”
Ruth suddenly spoke.
“Blue room.”
Everyone froze.
Willa turned.
“What?”
Ruth looked confused.
“Harold liked blue.”
Whitfield stared at her.
Ruth’s expression cleared.
“He came to our house.”
Willa’s heart stopped.
“Mom?”
“Before your trouble.”
Willa stepped forward.
“You knew Harold Fisk?”
Ruth nodded slowly.
“He gave me something.”
Whitfield’s gun moved.
Everett saw it.
“Willa!”
Everything happened at once.
Ruth shoved Whitfield’s arm.
The gun fired.
Everett threw himself toward Willa.
Marco’s men emerged from beneath the overpass.
Gunfire exploded.
Willa hit the pavement.
Everett landed beside her.
Ruth screamed.
Whitfield ran toward the SUV.
Marco fired at the tires.
The vehicle swerved away on shredded rubber.
Willa scrambled upright.
“Mom!”
Ruth lay on the road.
Blood spread across the blanket.
“No.”
Willa crawled to her.
The bullet had struck Ruth’s side.
“Pressure!”
Willa pressed both hands against the wound.
Ruth looked at her daughter.
For once, there was perfect recognition.
“Willa.”
“I’m here.”
“Kitchen.”
“What?”
“Our old house.”
Ruth coughed.
“Blue cup.”
Willa stared.
“Mom, what did Harold give you?”
Ruth closed her eyes.
“Key.”
Willa’s blood froze.
A key.
Harold had not entrusted the ledger to Marco.
Or Everett.
He had entrusted access to a woman nobody would suspect.
A middle-aged mother living quietly with her daughter.
Ruth opened her eyes again.
“Don’t let the doctor find it.”
Willa looked at Everett.
He had heard.
Marco’s men lifted Ruth into a vehicle.
Willa climbed in beside her.
Everett tried to follow.
His legs failed.
Marco caught him.
“You’re done walking, boss.”
Everett looked at Willa.
“Go.”
She hesitated.
Then nodded.
The vehicles separated.
Ruth was taken to a private surgical clinic trusted by Marco.
Everett went to the secure lake house.
And before dawn, Marco sent two men to the address where Willa and Ruth had lived three years earlier.
The house now belonged to another family.
The kitchen had been remodeled.
The cabinets replaced.
The old blue ceramic cup was gone.
Willa received the news beside Ruth’s recovery bed.
She closed her eyes.
“We’re too late.”
“No,” Ruth whispered.
Willa leaned closer.
Her mother’s voice was faint from medication.
“Not cup.”
“What?”
Ruth smiled.
“Cookie jar.”
Willa frowned.
“What cookie jar?”
“Bluebird.”
Then she fell asleep.
Willa stared.
A memory surfaced.
A ceramic cookie jar shaped like a bluebird.
Her mother had owned it for twenty years.
Willa had packed it when they lost the house.
Where had it gone?
Then she remembered.
Storage.
When she lost her apartment, she had placed several boxes in the basement of Lakeside Grill because the owner felt sorry for her.
The diner.
Willa stood.
Thirty minutes later, she entered the Lakeside Grill with two armed men.
The overnight waitress nearly dropped a coffee pot.
Willa hurried downstairs.
Her boxes remained behind an old freezer.
She tore through them.
Photographs.
Christmas ornaments.
Old nursing textbooks.
Then blue ceramic appeared.
The bird’s head lifted off.
Inside was a brass key.
And a folded note in Harold Fisk’s handwriting.
Willa opened it.
IF I AM DEAD, TRUST EVERETT KANE.
NOT HIS FATHER.
NOT DR. WHITFIELD.
AND NEVER EVELYN.
Willa stopped breathing.
Everett’s mother.
Evelyn Kane.
The woman Sterling claimed had paid Whitfield fifteen years earlier.
Willa looked at the brass key.
Attached to it was a metal tag.
May you like
KANE PRINTING HOUSE.
ROOM B-17.
